This flexible and inexpensive solution for moeny transfers not via banks attracts more and more individuals. There are other similiar services and I encourage the editor to make comparison table to assist users. One of the services I'm familiar with is Moneynetint.com.

This is a good news to all who transact money online or other transaction businesses. This might be of good help to those who outsource their job to other countries because they pay them according to respective currencies. Thanks to the International Money Transfer Agencies.

I was glad i came across your post I've been looking for cheaper ways to send money to my mother in the Philippines and I was quite surprised that it gave me an exchange rate of 1 GBP = 68.7629 PHP and they only charged me 2.91 GBP for the service fee. I never imagined that sending P 40,000.00 to my mother would only cost me 584.70 GBP. My first transaction took a while before my Mom could received (more than 24 hours)it, but in my next transaction my mom received a notification thru text message informing her of the money that I sent and it was just minutes away from the time that I made the transaction.

Thank You very much Peter. I never knew I could save so much and goodbye Western Union and Xoom.

Transfer cost is low but their exchange rates aren't great and they only do EUR, GBP and USD which is no good if trading anywhere else. I would suggest using an international payments provider still over the bank, but make sure they host all the currencies you will need! Used FTT Global before and were very good!

We seem to speak here of bi-lateral transfers; once they get to heuristics and then algorithms for multi-lateral loops , 'holding a/c s ' etc we'll have a more Universal System. Read just now in Comments about CurrencyFair and must learn more about that. Banks ARE Greedy and need to be taught such lessons.

This is akin to what "Hawala" transactions are. What will happen to the formal, statutory route, especially in a country like India, where one has to take permission from the Reserve Bank of India to convert foreign exchange above a set amount?

I recall during a visit to Switzerland (from Australia via the UK) being robbed by a machine at Zurich railway station. For a Swiss bank to rob me is good business, but if I defrauded a Swiss bank, I could well end up in prison.

After reading this (http://www.economist.com/node/21554740) a few months ago I started using Currencyfair.com for my small business and they've saved me a lot of time and money. I import and export from China so most of the transfers have been in the five figures and it's always gone smoothly. They are worth a look!

It's fascinating to see the emergence of web based companies like TransferWise and others in P2P lending. To witness a new medium competing against traditional brick and mortar banks encourages my belief in capitalism and also my belief in retribution. It used to be a privilege for a bank to have someone deposit large amounts of money; today there are virtually no benefits with only negligible amounts of interest. The banking industry is gluttonous and I sincerely hope these new trim systems will be regulated fairly so that they can shake things up a bit.

Banks are doing this themselves. ICICI Bank - an Indian bank - has been doing this with their Money2India transfer scheme. Say you're in Australia - you transfer your money to an Australian bank account which ICICI specifies. Once it verifies you've made that local transfer, the indian bank account is credited by them. I assume ICICI and the Foreign Banks then simply settle up at the end of the quarter/year.

CurrencyFair.com have been doing this for a lot longer, across a lot more currencies. Marginally better rates as well, at the moment 5000 GBP nets 5808.95 EUR on Transferwise, 5810.51 EUR on CurrencyFair.

A very clever idea, and an advance that reminds me of the invention of letters of credit as a way to transfer money without transferring specie. Even if it doesn't do away with international transfers through banks, it ought to save a lot of people a lot of money.